A Better Option For the Words “NO” or “Don’t Do That”!

In my opinion, hearing the word “No” and “Don’t Do That” over and over can be a bit discouraging for most of us. It makes us feel like we can’t do anything right and can lead to bad behavior or rebellion. As I have worked at Bravo, I have tried to come up with other ways to tell a toddler no or do not do that. Below is a list of a few alternative instead of always hearing no! I hope that you can use some of them.

1) Let’s use walking feet. We don’t want to fall and get hurt.

2) It’s not nice to hit our friends.

3) Let’s put the glue on our paper. It’s not good for our belly.

4) Let’s keep our feet on the ground.

5) The food goes in our belly, not on our friends.

6) We like to keep our spit in our mouth.

7) We keep our hands to ourselves.

8) We keep our markers on our own papers.

9) We keep our feet to ourselves.

10) We build with our blocks.

Try giving them choices, especially when they start telling you no back. For example, if you need them to put their blanket on the bed, you can give them the option to skip to put the blanket on the bed or jump to put the blanket on the bed. Always remember that they are at the sponge age where they just soak up everything you tell them, so saying no multiple times a day can come back to haunt you.

Redirection is always a go-to in my book when things start to get out of hand. If a kid is not being nice to another, simply redirecting them to play somewhere else or with someone else can solve the problem. For example, if a kid is throwing blocks across the room and you are not okay with that, simply redirect their attention and ask them how to build a tower, car, or whatever your imagination can think of that might take a little bit of time.